Volunteer responders with the North East Ambulance Service, including off duty paramedics and community first responders, will soon be able to register to be automatically alerted by the GoodSAM Responder app on their smartphones.

When someone has a cardiac arrest nearby, a message will be sent via the app along with the location of the nearest defibrillator.

The system has already been trialled and making a difference in London with the London Ambulance Service.

GoodSAM Responders will be alerted when a member of the public dials 999 in the North-east to report a suspected cardiac arrest or triggers an alert via the GoodSAM Alerter app.

NEAS operations centre will alert the three nearest responders to the life threatening call and simultaneously dispatch an ambulance, giving the patient the best possible chance of survival.

North East Ambulance Service (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)

When a volunteer is alerted, they will be able to accept the alert via the GoodSAM app and make their way to the location of the incident.

If a volunteer responder is not in a position to accept the alert, it can be declined and diverted to the next nearest responder.

The partnership will not impact on or substitute standard ambulance dispatch, with crews continuing to be sent to scene in the usual way.

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Gareth Campbell, emergency care operations manager, said: “This is excellent news for the North-east population and means that those special skills our workforce uses every day to help save lives are even more accessible.

“When a public access defibrillator is used in cardiac arrest, the overall survival rate is 58.6%.”

Professor Mark Wilson, GoodSAM’s medical director and co-founder, said: “There are first aid trained people all around us but usually the first they know of a neighbour having a cardiac arrest is an ambulance appearing in their street.

“If they had known and started CPR a few minutes prior to the ambulance arriving, chances of survival can be considerably increased.”